One time, at band camp
by Circuit the Cheese Lover
Summary: I didn;t think there was really a category for band. Anyway, here was my 'wonderful' summer in a hell hole commoners know as 'Band Camp'.
1. Hell (AKA Band Camp)

One time at band camp...

'Lunch break!' Our band director, Mr. Carpel, yelled out. The rest of the band sighed in relief. For the past three hours, the band had been out in the hot California sun, running drills and marching basics. The band director was off smoking weed with the pit and battery section leaders, talking about how great the season would be, while the wind and brass players slaved away under the heat of the sun and all-seeing eyes of the merciless superintendent.

Now the band flocked into the ice-cold air-conditioned band room to retrieve their lunches. The young men that made up the low brass section, plus a horn and clarinet player, gathered around an empty tuba locker. Inside was an old tube T.V, and a game cube with five controllers and two games.

As they started playing one of the games, their shouting, jeers, and profanity told you who was winning. The flutes and clarinets stayed in the band room, with the socially awkward freshmen outside in the shade. The saxophone section all went off campus to a near by Taco bell, despite the directors warnings to stay on campus. The high brass players started hiding most of Mr. Carpel's stuff in the theater.

The rest of the low brass flocked around the T.V. out of interest to see who was winning. The pit and battery just finished up their last run and were now on lunch break as well. The color guard strayed over to their boyfriends and pulled them into unseen corners.

Then...there was me.

I was one of the four freshmen trombone player, but wasn't especially socially awkward...or keen on playing a video game with twenty people looking over my shoulder and yelling in my ear.

I headed out side and rounded a corner to find my best friend Cypress, who was the chime and cymbal player for the pit. I found her in the shade of a big Rae-wood ash tree, sipping Gatorade and eating soup from a navy blue soup canister.

'Soup?' I asked as I sat down. 'Isn't is a bit hot for soup?'

'It's never too hot for soup.' Cypress said as she ate another spoonful.

'What type?' I asked, taking out my peanut butter sandwich.

'Lentil.'

'Yum.' I hate soup.

'So, how's marching?' she asked.

'Hell,' I commented 'Mr. Phillips, the superintendent is ruthless. He never smiles or thinks any of our insults are funny. He also thinks all of our drills suck. Next thing we know, he's going to make up do suicides.'

'What are those?'

'You'll'll find out soon enough.' I replied, groaning inwardly at the thought.

'You need to join pit, we don't do anything.'

'I know, and since your section leader is always gone, smoking pot most likely, no one can yell at you to do anything.'

'We just joke around and throw food at each other.'

'Lot more fun than suicides.'

'True.' Cypress finished her canister of soup and pulled out a bag of chips. '

Got any trash you want me to throw away?' I asked, standing up.

Cypress dug around in her bag and pulled out a Fiber One granola bar and her soup canister 'Just throw the whole bag away.'

'Will do.'

'Thanks.'

I started munching on an apple as I walked to the nearest can, which was by the band room. The closer I got to the band room, something started to smell like fresh spray paint. A few seniors in the trumpet section had spray painted **Don't Be A Dick** in large block letters over the band room door. Underneath that, someone had written in with sharpie Like Mr. Phil in smaller letters. I rolled my eyes, pitched the lunch bag along with my apple core, and started walking back to where Cypress was.

I heard snickering behind me and turned to see the trumpets who most likely did the deed. Matt, Damion, and Miguel. Matt was a tall white kid at about 7' 2''. Damion was a short Asian who came up to about Matt's chest. Miguel was a heavyset Mexican with dark eyes. I was looking behind me, so I didn't see the cans of spray paint rolling on the ground in front of me.

As I stepped on one, The world turned upside down, as I landed on my back to meet the sidewalk. My head had hit the pavement, not hard enough to knock me out, but hard enough to give me a nasty migraine. The trio only laughed harder, come to see a little freshmen tripping over their spray can's. They put them there for the obvious reason to watch some one trip over them.

'You alright, Astrid?' Someone asked to my right as I sat up. '

More or less.' I replied. They offered me a hand and I gladly took it. When my vision had cleared, I saw that my helper was Jacob, another fellow freshmen trombone.

'Need help with anything?' he asked.

Uh n-...yeah. Where's Tammy?' Tammy was the local band mom who carried around a bag that healed everything from food to screwdrivers to laxatives.

'She took Aaron's tuba to Mr. Cantu to get the bell un-dented and extension fixed.' '

When he'd do that?'

'When he face planted last drill rehearsal.'

'Ah, when she comes back, ask her to give me Ibuwhateveryoucallit.'

'Ibuprofen, and sure.'

'Thanks.' I said as I walked back to Cypress with a pounding migraine.

'What took so long?'

'Impatient much?'

'You were just throwing something away, you-'

'I said 'Hi' to some people, what's wrong with that?'

'...nothing, just wondered.'

'You sure your fine?'

'Yeah, minus the fact that my head feels like it was sat on.'

Around twenty minutes later, our well deserved lunch break was over, and it was even hotter outside. We broke into sections to go over the drill and music, and get help on anything we may need help on.

'SUICIDES!' My section leader, Rook, yelled. We all groaned. When I say all, I mean the five if us.

For all you curious souls out there, a suicide, is not fun. What it is, is a complex series of lateral slide drills.

A lateral slide is when some one is marching one way and has to point their bell another way.

Example for all the confused people. You are walking...marching west and the judges stand is North. You have to turn your upper body so the bell and your face points north while still marching west. Get it?

There not fun.

Suicides consist of fast one-count direction changes, ducking to avoid the confused person's slide, getting hit in the face with your neighbor's slide, and a severe case of whiplash if you're doing it right. If you're not doing the drills correctly, then all you get is a dented slide and a bad headache.

We started off at 130, the tempo of our first movement. All of us were lost, except Joseph, who was a sophomore and had done this before. After getting hit in the face five times by Alyassa and twice by Joel, we moved to the tempo 150. After that 172, the tempo of the third moment, then just so Rook could laugh at us, 200. I stopped because I was soon confused and had lost my place, so I backed up to avoid getting hit.

I found Jacob next to me, 'When I say three, we attack Rook, the others already know.' He muttered into my ear so Rook wouldn't overhear.

'Fun' I mutter. 'Just what I want to do, piss off Rook even more than we need to.'

Jacob poked my shoulder 'Hey, I think we all agree that he needs it.'

'...True.'

'What are you shit's doing?' Rook yelled at us. His neck and face were sunburned; now as red as his hair from the lack of sunscreen.

'Now?' I pleaded .

'Sure now.' He said.

'Three!' I yelled to the other trombone players. Simultaneously, like it had been rehearsed, the three of them dropped their trombones and ran towards Rook along with Jacob and I. He barely had time to say 'What the f-' before five trombone players jumped on top of him.

'What the Hell?! THIS IS MUTINY, MUTINY I SAY!' Rook screamed.

'Shut him up.' Alyassa said, trying as hard as she could to contain her laughter.

'Gladly' Joseph said. He ran over to his case and pulled out an old spit rag. He ran back over to us and shoved the spit rag in Ryan's mouth.

'MMMMMMUMHUM!' Ryan protested in anger.

'Be nicer to us, and I won't have to sit on you again.' Jacob taunted. For two milliseconds, I almost felt sorry for Rook, but then the other part of me told me he deserved it. Jacob was a water polo/ex-football player, so he was a big guy...roughly twice my height and weight. The funny thing was we were exactly two months apart.

'Don't get cocky, freshman' Joseph spouted.

'What?' Jacob grinned. 'Just trying to logical here.'

'Logical? How is this being logical? We look like we're following our section leaders orders, so we don't get in trouble with Mr. Carpel. Then we got annoyed at our section leader, and now were attacking our section leader...isn't that human instinct and not logic to attack something that annoys you?' Joel (the smart one of the group) asked.

'Whatever. You guys knock yourselves out, Mariah's calling me.' With that, Joseph jogged off in the direction of his girlfriend.

'Wonder what their going to do? Make love in the corner?' Alyassa wondered aloud after Joseph and Mariah started swallowing each other's faces.

'By the looks of it, I would have to guess they hate each other.' I replied to her comment.

With one less person to hold Rook down, the skinny ginger started to gain the advantage over us...us consisting of four freshmen, three of them being under 5' 4'' and 120 lbs. Alyassa was kicked off first, then Joel fell. Jacob, the idiot, stood up to see if Joel was fine. Ryan now had next to nothing on his back, he rolled over and jerked up, throwing me off. He took the spit rag and flung it down. 'You little fucks, are soo dead!'

'Do my eyes deceive me...' I thought of anything I could to buy time.

'HEY LOOK, IT'S HALEY'S COMET!'

'OMYGOD...WHERE?' about twenty people yelled. Like the idiot with no brain cells he was, Rook turned and looked in the direction I was pointing. I took the three seconds I had to get off the grass and started running torwed the band room. '

Jacob, Joel, Alyassa!' I yelled at them to follow, but they were still trying to find Haley's comet. They quickly got the hint and started sprinting off with me, with an enraged skinny ginger on our heels


	2. The horror of Quarters

People say music and math have nothing to do with each other...let me prove you wrong.

Substitutes=Freedom...Substitutes=non-productivity.

Band director=little more than less productivity, yelling, objects thrown at head/stand (as long as the horn is ok), and seeing who can count the highest (usually to 8). Orchestra festival with the warm ups in the band room= PARTY IN THE GYM!...or in my case...COIN COUNTING PARTY!

One too warm day in March...

Ah, screw formal introductions.

Today I had a coin counting party instead of being yelled and having have a drum stick thrown at my face.

Fun? NO!

Well, let me back up a bit. Today was the orchestra festival in our schools small, cramped, theater that seats about 300. Mr. Carpel (our weed-smoking, stick-throwing, bipolar band director), had to help with adjudication, and the schools used our band room as a warm-up room, and the choir room as case storage...which is probably the most useful the choir room had been all year. Since the two rooms were occupied and our weed-smoking, stick-throwing, bipolar band director was busy, we (the band) were in the gym, with a sub. Half the group went to play basketball, the others sat in a circle and played a card game that was like the 'mature' version of Apples to Apples.

Some went and roamed the campus, others went into the library (NERDS!...that would of been me) to get home work done.

My friend, Jul, a french horn player, was looking a bit lonely in the corner, concerting he's socially awkward, so I walked over and started a conversation...about erasers.

Yes, erasers. Now you see why Jul is so socially awkward?

Anyway, before Mr. Carpel had to leave, he yelled at the two of us and said something along the lines of

'You're not doing anything useful. Cont coins for me.'

The task at hand didn't sound _too _bad, I mean, counting coins...what could possibly go wrong...

NEVER. THINK. THAT!

So Jul and I go into the choir room and start counting coins. Many many coins.

You see, all theses coins had come from our previous fundraiser, pretzel rods...which were disgusting if you ask me. Even though you're 'technically' not allowed to sell them on school campus, it's almost like an unspoken acceptation. Everyone does, even the teachers buy them.

And it's also common knowledge that 97.74% of the student body at a public high school is broke.

So kids pay in coins.

Quarters.

Many Quarters.

Roughly a thousand.

MORE than a thousand

Where the HELL do they all come from?

Half of them: the ground.

The other half...remains a mystery.

So there we were, Jul and I, rolling these thousand quarters

Least they didn't pay in pennies.

I think we came up to roughly $500 in Quarters

That's 25,000 Quarters. Since there were only two of us, Jul and I had to stay nearly two hours after to finish our coin counting spree.

Mr. Carpel wasn;t even kind enough to give us pre-rolled coin sleeves. Jul tried to fold them, but after demolishing two, I told I knew how to do it. We had a small system going where I sorted the coins into piles and folded the coin sleeves, while Jul counted out how many coins have to go into one sleeve.

The ONE good thing I got out of the whole thing was a piece of old Dutch currency from 1942.


End file.
